Ceramics are regarded as superior materials for high-tech applications because they are resistant to high temperatures, chemically inert and have a high hardness and fracture toughness. These reasons make ceramics interesting for high temperature processes in catalysis, refractories, aerospace or chemical industry; but also in medical implants, aesthetics and opto-mechatronics.

The advantages

Ceramic materials can find many applications but are generally hard to shape. Additive manufacturing (AM) allows shaping ceramics of complex structures and catalyzes the design of improved components that would not be possible by traditional techniques, such as powder injection molding (PIM). Products can be directly designed targeting final applications while adding form freedom, light weight and less material usage. This has the potential to change the industry of the future, where applications rule over design. Traditional techniques require strong investments in tooling, however AM is an open platform where the cost of production per part can be independent of the batch size.

Currently, the most reliable additive technique is based on Stereolithography (SLA), and it uses a mix of photoreactive liquid polymers and ceramic powders that is used to produce high resolution parts through pixel-by-pixel control. Key to obtain dense and functional components lays on a careful materials development, yielding microstructures undistinguishable from products obtained by other shaping techniques.

Research and development

Our Admaflex technology provides an open platform that allows the production of multitude of materials. This allows the adaption of the technique to customer-specific materials without having to modify the system.

We aim for continuous materials improvement and development of new feedstocks for additive manufacturing of ceramics. Our in-house R&D department is able to develop new compositions and materials on client demand as well as carry on with the continuous materials development. If you have an application or material that you would like to use in additive manufacturing, we can help you with your developments.

Want to explore new ways?

If you have a trusted powder of your own or you didn’t find the material that you would like in our portfolio, you can contact us to launch a development project for adapting your materials to our stereolithography-based additive manufacturing technology.

Send an email to info@admatec.nl and we will answer all your questions related to materials development in a short time.

For specific questions about our materials please use the contact form on our website to fill out your specific question.